Believe Me When I Say I Carry All My Sins
by CountingCards
Summary: Her hands were covered in blood but she didn't even know where she was. This Konoha was a nightmare even if it was leagues ahead of her own. It was a nightmare because a shinobi's greatest weapon was information and now Sakura was completely in the fucking dark.
1. I was a heavy heart to carry

Sakura hated nearly dying. After the fifth time, she stopped being scared and mostly just started getting annoyed by the whole thing. Yeah, oh no, her guts are everywhere, blah blah blah. She just took care of it and got on with her life.

So when the S-rank missing-nin, nicknamed "Chariot,", stabbed her through the chest she really didn't do much other than grunt. Been there, done that (with one of her own fucking teammates) and she had more than enough chakra to knit the whole thing up again in a second. She briefly considering closing the wound with the bastard's arm still up in there but decided that would be a level of psychological warfare her new partner would be uncomfortable with.

Fucking Council of Elderly Dipshits had to stick her with a little chan baby, some offshoot of the Hyuga family, to keep an eye on her. It really meant she had to wipe the kid's ass on the mission considering they contained the basic chakra levels of a tadpole and as much control over it as a drunk Naru-

Well, it wasn't good for Sakura, who had been working alone for a few months up until now. She didn't want a new team or a new partner, but her past made the new government of Konoha unduly worried. She was one of the most powerful shinobi in the world and also hated the new Hokage - not a winning combination.

Chariot stumbled back a few paces, staring in wonder as her chest healed without a scar. He glanced up at her forehead and hair, checking to see if she was "The Sakura" or whatever nonsense they called her, but she was wearing a full mask and hood because she wasn't a complete idiot. Pink hair was a target and vanity could only get you so far. Ino would probably shudder at her ugly (but entirely functional) uniform but Ino was dead and Sakura didn't have the luxury to think about what she would have wanted.

She came at the asshole again, using a chakra scalpel to go directly under the skin and start cutting up muscles. Methods like that allowed her to bypass some amount of physical and chakra armor, which made fights easier in the long run. People thought that green chakra couldn't hurt them but that's just because they lacked imagination.

The fight was pretty standard after that. Chariot lost feeling in his arm, tried to set her on fire, and retreated to the trees after leaving a clone behind. She quickly threw a senbon through the fake guy's throat and gave chase, only to find Chariot's dead body stuck to a tree with dozens of kunai.

Fuck. The kid definitely didn't do that one.

She quickly glanced at the plethora of pointy objects sticking out of her target: they looked to be ANBU and ROOT issued. It was an ambush, but she doubted it was for him.

She retreated from the tree into a clearing behind her. Twenty figures dropped with her, surrounding her; above her head, the Hyuga kid started to laugh.

Sakura discovered she hated actually dying much more than nearly dying.

She woke up covered in blood.

That wasn't too unusual. The weird thing was her only wounds were on her wrists - what looked to be self-inflicted cuts. None of the stabs or burns or lacerations that had eventually brought her down in the forest.

She healed herself quickly, clean cuts like that barely taking any effort. Her chakra levels were low. Scratch that - her chakra levels were full and her chakra pool was half her usual. She felt like a genin again, wiped out after healing one person. She also lacked the familiar weight pressing in on the back of her forehead.

She was in a bathroom, small. White tiles, kinda bloody, there was a knife on the ground. She realized she was in a dress (not one she owned) without weapons and grabbed it. There was a mirror over the sink, but when she looked there was a stranger looking back.

Long, long pink hair. Green eyes without visible dark circles. No cuts or bruises. Blank forehead. Cute makeup.

When Sakura was young, eleven or so, she dreamed that she would grow up to look like this. Weak. Untested. Like a civilian. Sakura glanced down at her(?) arms - no muscle definition, no scars except for the cuts she had just healed, and her dress was impractical for any function except clubbing. And dying, apparently.

She had a small piece of paper stuck to her ankle, a monitor seal that was slowly disintegrating. She ripped it off to take a closer look but it burst into flames. Even without the specifics of what it was, Sakura could infer that someone was trying to keep a close eye on her.

Sakura quickly masked her chakra and slowly poked her head out of the bathroom. She didn't know exactly what was happening and she really didn't want to draw attention to that fact.

It looked like she was in a typical Konoha apartment. A civilian one, based on the fact she couldn't pick up on any traps or seals. There were a few scattered pictures, mostly of Sakura when she was younger, sometimes with her family and one with Ino.

Except Sakura had burned all her photos and lived in standard shinobi housing. And her apartment was full of traps.

A stalker? Possible, but the pictures were all in frames and placed around the apartment naturally, no effigies or shrines in sight. There were medical textbooks on the shelves, floors, and counters. Looking through another doorway, she saw there were some on the only bed on the apartment.

She cautiously moved towards the window in the bedroom and looked out to see -

To see Konoha, but not. It was big, bigger than it should be. Civilians were laughing on the street, and it looked like there was a police force roaming around instead of patrolling shinobi.

A police force with black hair.

Sakura burst out the window and scrambled to the rooftop of her building. This was strange, but she could always rely on one thing to center her. The heart of Konoha. Hokage Rock.

Except Hokage Rock had four faces, ending on Minato, Naruto's dead dad. No Tsunade, no Danzo. What the fuck was going on?

"Kai," she shouted, but nothing changed. Could it have been the sharingan? Danzo himself might have come to kill her but she doubted it - he was old, frail, and she didn't sense him in the forest during her attack. There was no one else who had the sharingan, but it was the only explanation for what she saw.

But even worse than what she saw on the rock was what she felt. A familiar chakra signature was quickly closing in on her apartment.

Kabuto. Going fast and silent, but she knew him too well to be fooled.

He was supposed to be dead. She clearly remembered killing him. Who brought him back, and why was he allowed to wander Konoha? She couldn't have gone back in time - it wouldn't explain her old body, her young chakra, or the pictures in her apartment.

Kabuto was climbing the stairs. Sakura crawled back into her apartment, threw on a jacket to cover her wrists and bloody dress, and slammed the door of the bathroom shut. She stuck the knife, what looked to be the only weapon in the apartment, to the inside of the jacket with chakra. If she needed it quickly it would be there.

She wasn't sure how well she would fare against Kabuto with her chakra levels. Along with that, the only way to beat a man who made himself essentially impervious to injury was to be the same, and now she didn't have her seal. She could still heal her wounds but fatal ones would be a lot more difficult to take care of.

She had the knife and any medical textbooks on the ground, as well as her own two hands. No gloves, which was unfortunate, but she could make this work. She had a feeling Kabuto wouldn't be expecting her as she was now.

She heard a knock and composed herself, throwing on a smile. She opened it a crack, face held back enough to dodge any kunai or senbon thrown in. Kabuto looked worried and confused for a second before kindly smiling, hands thrown up in a classic sign of surrender.

She tried not to glare but probably failed, considering how much she genuinely wanted Kabuto to choke on his own blood. He didn't seem surprised at her reaction either, which meant he had come for a fight.

"Ahh, Sakura-chan, I know you're angry and I am really quite sorry that your application was rejected from the hospital staff. Maybe next time! How about I take you out for a conciliation lunch?" Her hand stopped on it's unconscious journey to the knife. Rejected from the hospital? She ran the fucking thing when she wasn't on missions. The nurses called her Sakura-sama, and Kabuto was definitely not her nurse.

She shook her head slowly. Whatever this was she wanted to part of it. Kabuto working at a hospital really only spelled disaster, and in a way she was glad that she had been rejected. But where was she? A genjutsu, or something even worse? The environment was fully realized, every detail as real as the next, and her head felt completely clear.

The only other explanation she could think of was an alternate universe. A world different from her own in minute ways. Like, for example, the attack of the Nine-Tails on the night of Naruto's birth.

If that never happened, or it had been contained, it would explain Minato being Hokage instead of being dead, the village being full and clean, the Uchiha clan surviving. Danzo had orchestrated the massacre under Sarutobi's nose, but it's possible Minato was able to prevent the incident.

If Danzo was dead or neutered it would explain Kabuto's presence as a hospital worker in Konoha, but she couldn't rely on Danzo's death anytime soon. Her enemies always had a way at coming back in the most inconvenient moments.

An alternate universe where Sakura hadn't been a gifted medic-nin. An alternate universe where her wrists had been slit and she wouldn't have had a way to heal them. An alternate universe where Sakura had died at the same moment another Sakura had been betrayed and killed by her Hokage.

Okay. Fine. Yeah. Sure. Naruto had done weird shit when he was alive, now Sakura was doing weird shit when she wasn't. This was truly the only natural conclusion to the clusterfuck of Team 7.

She was distracted by her thoughts when Kabuto mockingly knocked on the door again to catch her attention. "Are you sure you don't want to go to lunch with me, Sakura-chan? It will be fuuuuuun," he sang. Was this how Kabuto acted when he was genuine? Because it was exactly the same as how he looked when he was lying his pasty little ass off.

"Look, Kabuto-san," Was that what she called him? Fuck. "I understand you're trying to be kind-"

"Trust me, it's really no hardship to take a pretty girl out to lunch, and my only motivation isn't necessarily kindness."

Sakura threw up in her mouth, just a little bit. She was ready to refuse again when Kabuto's eyes sharpened on the wrists of her jacket and he took a small sniff. Medic-nin always knew the scent of blood. Kill him? Too messy.

"Look, Kabuto-san, if you insist I won't say no again. Just let me get dressed real quick." Sakura gave a fake giggle and slammed the door, retreating to her bathroom first. She washed off the rest of the blood from her wrists, now thoroughly staining the jacket and dress she had been wearing. She went into her bedroom, found another dress and jacket, and threw them on. There weren't any more weapons in her bedroom, so she moved the knife to the new jacket before heading back out into the hall.

Kabuto was smirking when she opened her front door - either because he could tell she was covering up the scent of blood or because she said yes to lunch. Either way, he was a creep and she wanted this to end quickly. The walk out of the building was silent, Kabuto walking slightly in front of her. It was curious that he didn't perceive her as a threat but it worked out well. Every shinobi's greatest weapon was the element of surprise.

The market outside of her apartment building was bustling, full of food stalls and children. Elders sat playing shogi, vendors shouted their wears, and color burst from every corner. Sakura hadn't seen this Konoha is so long.

For a moment she was lost, eleven again, happy enough to burst. She had so much love in her heart for her family, for her village, for Sasuke. She was thirteen again, abandoned but hanging on, knowing her life wasn't over. Sixteen, stronger, her mentor and her best friend by her side. Seventeen, in the ruins, Sasuke dead at her feet and Naruto shouting curses by her side. Eighteen, alone. Nineteen, dead.

Kabuto was silent as she stared at Konoha for what looked like the first time. She knew it was suspicious but she couldn't stop. This was a miracle. An impossible miracle. Except it was Kabuto by her side, not Naruto or Kakashi or Tsunade. She was in the midst of a village of dead people, and she had no idea who to trust.

All the sights and sounds and smells were familiar. Fantastical.

"Beautiful," she whispered, sincere for what felt like the first time in years. It was beautiful. Kabuto stopped for a minute as well, turning to see what she was looking at but not looking at anything beyond the ordinary for him.

"You've lived here all your life, Sakura-chan," he said. His voice was mild but she knew he was suspicious. She didn't care.

"But have you ever taken the moment to appreciate it, Kabuto-san? Stopping can let you see things like never before." She could smell dango in the air, hear small backyard fireworks going off in the alleyways.

This is why Sakura had never gone missing-nin. Konoha would always be special, her only love. The village could be dark and messy and destroyed but it would be hers.

Kabuto sighed faintly in her peripheral. "You do like making my life difficult, don't you Sakura-chan?"

She went to question him when a few feet away there came a shout and the smell of blood.

Fuck.

She turned to her left where the elders had been playing shogi but were now pointing at an old man holding his leg and making pained noises. There was a kunai in his thigh, directly over the femoral artery. He reached to take it out and she grabbed his wrist in a vice to stop him from being a fucking idiot. He struggled for a second before realizing it would be easier to move Hokage Rock with his bare hands.

"Sir, if you pull that out right now you will bleed to death. Let me handle this." Sakura wasn't going to rely on Kabuto to help so she started preparing on her own. She grabbed whatever napkins she could of the table and grabbed the man's jacket from the back of his chair. She kneeled on the ground, knees protesting because she was wearing a flimsy dress, and started a diagnostic.

The kunai wasn't poisoned and the cut wasn't jagged or tearing anything internally. A slow pull should work, as clean as possible, and then a massive burst of chakra should staunch the bleeding with the jacket as support.

The man was struggling, however, wiggling back and forth. "Why should I trust you? Are you a doctor?"

The bystanders offered no support, simply crowding around in a big circle and making vague exclamations of "Get a doctor!" or "Help him!" Gotta love civilians.

"Sir, I understand your concerns, but do you honestly think you can fix this on your own? Now I need you to hold still, I'm going to numb the nerves in your legs just a little so this won't hurt a bit."

The familiar glow overtook her hands, drawing a gasp from the crowds around her. She carefully laid them on the man's legs. He froze and then relaxed.

"Okay, I'm going to take the kunai out, and I need you to be absolutely still. Can you be still for me?" Sakura had taken to treating all her patients, whether they be civilians or even ANBU, like children when healing them. Most people became senseless when injured and it was really the only way to wrangle them. Some of them didn't like being patronized to, but they found it hard to complain with their lives in her hands.

Inch by inch she dragged the weapon out. The man was still, fingers trembling ever so slightly, but Sakura couldn't notice at a time like this. One hand on the kunai, one hand on the leg, she healed the internal damage left behind from the weapon, hoping to close the artery before she pulled it out entirely.

The process took about two minutes in total, and by the end, the man was really no worse for wear. Kunai injuries were as common as a cold in Konoha and twice as easy to take care of. His pants would be difficult to clean, of course, but that's what life was sometimes. A spider had crawled up her leg while she had been concentrating and she brushed it off. The street was a lot quieter now, had been close to silent during the process.

Sakura took a peek at the crowd gathered around her. She couldn't sense Kabuto and didn't know when he left (Was he searching her apartment? Did she clean the blood?) but she did see people push a little redheaded boy wringing his hands to the front, a kunai pouch on his leg. The culprit, then. She tossed the bloodied kunai at the boy and he managed to catch it with minimal fumbling.

"You're the one who threw it then?" she asked, not really needing the answer.

"I did, but I totally didn't throw it at that man, believe it! I was throwing it at a spider to protect Hana-chan!" He exclaimed. The girl by his side bobbed her head up and down but didn't look at Sakura directly.

Which was good, because Sakura was experiencing a bit of a crisis. All she saw was Naruto standing in front of her, refusing to be guilty for any prank he pulled. Naruto, always trying to protect someone, anyone.

Red hair. Naruto's mom had red hair, didn't she? And if Minato was alive and kicking, it stood to reason she could still be alive as well. She could have had more kids than Naruto. Naruto could have a little brother, friends with Hanabi Hyuga, who practiced kunai throwing in the marketplace with the same foolish attitude.

Fucking Christ on a stick. She couldn't handle this. The scars on her wrists itched and she only had one knife on her. Her hands were covered in blood but she didn't even know where she was. This Konoha was a nightmare even if it was leagues ahead of her own.

It was a nightmare because a shinobi's greatest weapon was information and now Sakura was completely in the fucking dark.

She didn't speak. Couldn't speak. She pulled herself up, chakra levels low after only two healings (it had been so long since she had been this fucking pathetic) and recognized Kabuto pushing his way through the crowd.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, you handled that pretty well! It's amazing," he grinned sleepily, hands waving. The crowd dispersed slowly, some helping the old man stand up and patting her on the back. The street would be back to normal in a few minutes, Sakura was sure.

Now Sakura was sure Kabuto had disappeared to check her apartment. He would have found the blood in the bathroom, but the only real reason he would have thought to check is if he had known there would be blood in the first place.

So Kabuto had slit her fucking wrists then and tried to make it look like a suicide. Fan-fucking-tastic. He realized she survived when the seal burned up. He caused the kunai incident for a distraction, then, and to possibly test her healing abilities.

He wanted to know why she had survived the attempt, to see if she had done it herself. She knew how Kabuto thought after studying his journals and experiments, and he would have no qualms about killing a citizen just to see how advanced she was in using medical chakra.

Now she needed to know why he tried to kill her. She didn't know much about the Sakura of this world, but she doubted she caused too many waves. Something to do with the hospital, perhaps? Any place where Kabuto worked was sure to be full of shit, and if she had discovered something in the hospital it would explain why she got rejected and then got murdered.

He could have also used the rejection as a probable motivation for her "suicide." All of Kabuto's actions always had three motivations and twelve contingency plans, and she doubted that changed from her Konoha.

So, Kabuto was evil. Now she had information. Sakura could work with that.

"Thanks, Kabuto-chan," she squealed, "I learned from the very best." She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the blood on her hands, wiping them on a napkin she plucked from the table. She made herself blush while looking at Kabuto before turning her head to the side. With any luck, he had been investigating her apartment while she had been in medic mode.

Luck held. He patronized at her for a bit, telling her the things she could have done better before turning to the man and finishing up the process. She fawned and grinned and played along. If she played the fool well enough Kabuto might start to think that Sakura had been saved instead of saving herself. Then he would be put on the path of her "mysterious ally," giving Sakura room to start her own work.

If the hospital was fucked then her first step would be to find Tsunade. After that, she could start on where this universe's Danzo was and kill him. Then she would kill Akatsuki. Find Obito, find Orochimaru, find Madara, find Hanzo, find anyone who had ever hurt her family. Easy enough.

She would also dismember Kabuto, just for her own piece of mind.

A tug on her elbow prompted her eyes downward to the Naruto look-alike, tears in his little blue eyes. Carbon copies of Naruto's eyes, really, and it felt like another punch to the gut.

"I'm sorry, miss, but it wasn't me, so don't tell my brother! Or my father! And they wouldn't believe you anyway cause brother says you're not even a ninja anyway so what would you know?" He shouted. Hanabi nodded behind his shoulder. More bluster than brains, another reason to assume it was Naruto's brother.

"Only an idiot gives up being a shinobi!" Another nod. "Only a meanie!" Another nod. "Only a stupid girl!" Hanabi started the nod and then caught herself, giving the boy a glare before shoving him into the dirt.

Fucking children. Sakura brushed past them and made her way to her apartment. She had to find weapons, real clothes, and trap-making materials. She also had to seal the place up entirely; thankfully, she had a bathroom full of her own blood which she could use to make good seals rather easily.

She needed money to buy things, a newspaper, and a mission. Going missing-nin to find Tsunade wasn't an option if her grand scheme was to save Konoha, so she had to find a way to convince Minato that an ex-shinobi was right for the job.

She also needed to track Tsunade down, which meant she had to talk to a lot of people without acting like a stranger who had hijacked Sakura's body. Troublesome, to borrow a phrase.

Well, Sakura had always liked causing trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Sakura saw Itachi, she didn't scream. She wanted to, felt it rising in her throat like bile, but she held it in with the same force of will she used to make her first kill. She couldn't scream, because this Itachi had never murdered his clan and become a terrorist and the old Sakura would know that. Would trust him.

Well, Sakura wasn't going to go that far. Even standing on opposite sides of the weapons store she could tell he was dangerous, and Sakura would never trust anyone that had the ability to hurt her.

Tenten was also in the store with them, sharpening some kunai, but she didn't seem to recognize Sakura. She offered no friendly wave, no kunoichi discount. It had been jarring to realize that she couldn't rely on her previous interactions to guide these new ones. If Sakura didn't know Tenten, it's possible she hadn't even made it to the Chunin exams. Hadn't faced a legendary Sannin and lived, fought Ino and tied. It was bizarre here.

So the first time Sakura saw Itachi she didn't scream - but it was a close thing. Here, Sakura was the interloper, the snake in the grass. Itachi, along with the rest of the Uchiha, had a name that weighed more than she did. Any move against him would have her killed.

So she didn't scream, didn't react except for a stiffening of the limbs and a surprised blink. She was trained to be better than screaming at someone just because they were supposed to be evil (and dead). She had faced dead shinobi before and lived to tell the tale.

So things were under control before Sasuke entered the store.

Fuck.

Sakura used every single ounce of her ninja training to disappear behind the sword rack. She grabbed the nearest pointy edge and rammed it into her hand just to check but no, Sasuke was real and yes, he was talking to his brother peacefully in a store. Sakura healed it quickly and wiped off the sword as much as possible with her shirt. Seeing him hurt more than seeing the four-faced Hokage Rock.

Sakura debated just leaving quietly, avoiding any chance of confrontation. But she couldn't find any weapons in her house besides kitchen knives - no kunai or senbon or exploding tags. With her chakra the way it was (fucking weak) she needed weapons more than ever. So she stayed.

Sakura took another look, just to check, of course just to check, and found herself staring at the boy she had loved so long ago.

The last time she had seen him, though, there was no love between them. Just the aching void vengeance left behind. He had left her, left Konoha, and had gotten nothing for it but an early death and an unmarked grave somewhere in the Lightning Country. She had buried Itachi and Sasuke together, the last of the Uchiha, gone had last.

She could still feel the dirt under her fingernails. She had used an Earth Jutsu to dig the graves but she had lain down the last few feet of dirt herself. It was the only goodbye she could give.

"Stop staring at me."

Sakura was ripped back into the present moment.

Weapons store. Tenten behind the counter. Sword in her hand. Wound healing. Wrists itching. Hair brushing too low against her chest.

Sasuke was glaring at her from across the aisle, scoffing at the look on her face. Itachi was standing behind him, as pensive and unreadable as ever.

She shook herself and gave him a smile, practiced and fake. She had smiled like this hundreds of thousands of times - she had perfected it the same way every kunoichi had to perfect a smile. She showed her teeth, wrinkled her eyes, and acted like a girl in love. She had a lot of practice in the area.

She expected Sasuke to frown, of course. It was probably the same across every universe: Sasuke was an unsmiling bastard to everyone unlucky enough to interact with him. Let him think her annoying, irritating, unremarkable. Let him treat her like the Sakura Haruno was never reached chunin, never amounted to anything. Who she was before would become the best armor she could use.

"Sorry, sorry," she said with a giggle. It fell a bit flat in her throat. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed. Well, it likely wouldn't matter.

Except Itachi was there and Itachi was frowning. ANBU Itachi. Genius Itachi. Overprotective Itachi. Itachi who she had to avoid no matter what.

"I was lost in thought again." She giggled, again. It sounded better, more natural. Look at me, she said, a dumb little girl, an idiot in love. Look at my smile and not my trembling hands, look at my big eyes and not the knife strapped to my thigh. Look at what I want you to look at.

But Itachi and Sasuke knew how kunoichi worked, were raised by and beside kunoichi, and they didn't take the bait.

She couldn't rely on past history or inside jokes, she couldn't attack or run, and she couldn't pretend she hadn't tried to work them just a second ago. She had gotten cocky.

Fucking Uchiha; they always threw her off, made her weak. Even when they were dead.

It had only been a month working for Root, a month after Naruto had fallen, when she broke into the records room and found Itachi's file. Found the real reason for the massacre. She cried like a fucking child in the base of killers and liars. She cried for Sasuke, who hated and killed his last bit of family. She cried for Itachi, a child given a choice that would damn him for life.

So Sakura was understandably jarred looking at the two of them now, undeniably close and alive. It was stranger than Kabuto, then Tenten, then her fragile chakra. It was another reason this Konoha was so much better than the one she left behind. Another reason she didn't belong her.

She stopped smiling, forcing herself to be genuine. She could still do this. They didn't know her, not really, and she could still use that.

"Okay, you got me, I'm having a bad day Sasuke-kun," she demurred. Her voice was low and she brushed her bangs off her forehead with her still-shaking hands. I'm weak, look at me, fragile and breakable and not a threat in the least. I couldn't possibly do anything to threaten the great Uchiha family.

Itachi looked to her and seemed to soften. "Is this about what happened yesterday?" He wasn't smiling, of course, but he was as polite as she remembered, even more so now that he wasn't pretending to be a terrorist. She still couldn't look him in the eye.

Yesterday. The marketplace. The old man and the kunai. Hero Sakura, rejected from the hospital, managed to save the day.

Sakura laughed, faintly, because he was right, it was about yesterday for all the reasons he wasn't thinking.

"It was crazy. I can't stop thinking about it and I still feel panicked. I had no idea what I was doing." Too truthful by half, but Itachi looked kind and Sasuke looked like he was already bored and she would have said anything to make them leave. She would dance naked or trash the store or play with her own entrails just so she wouldn't have to look at the two brothers any longer. She had left that day, that battle, behind years ago but now she was still there.

Sakura, for one second and one second only, wished she hadn't healed her wrists. She gave herself that second, revealed in the despair she was allowing herself to feel, and then boxed that shit up.

She had a job. She would die when she was done.

Her other hand twitched towards her knife, a response to all the adrenaline in her system. Sakura normally would have taken care of her enemies by now, but this really wasn't normal and they weren't her enemies. Both brothers glanced down and their gazes stuck. The blood. Fuck.

"Mishandle a kunai?" Sasuke drawled, amused with some amount of sharpness in his eyes. Jesus, in the time he was dead she had really forgotten what a bastard he was. She missed it and hated herself for missing it.

"Yeah, well, you know me." That was a safe response, right? She was hoping his answer would be "yes," because then it would at least make one of them.

Sasuke reached inside one of his many pockets and withdrew a bandage. "Do something about it, and stop bleeding over merchandise you're not going to buy."

Yeah, he had worked with Kabuto. Same beautiful bedside manner. She laughed, almost uncontrollably. This was the first time he gave a shit about her in so long and it wasn't even for her.

"Save your bandages, Sasuke-kun. I'm sure you don't want to waste them on somebody like me."

She couldn't stop laughing. This boy still brought out every single one of her emotions like no other. The bandage hung in the air between them, a white flag. Sakura had been fighting for so long. She couldn't stop now.

She wiggled her fingers at him, the cut on her hand healed before they had even seen her.

"You healed it yourself, then? Impressive," Itachi said, appraising her in a new light. In his mind, she was on step closer to medic and one step farther away from one-time fluke.

But Sasuke got angry, for some reason, grabbing her wrist in a crushing grip that had to have been fueled by chakra. Sakura reflexively grabbed the knife from her thigh and struck at his hand. He dodged but she managed to graze him before she darted away. She couldn't go brute force, not without her seal, so she needed distance.

Except Sasuke wasn't going to attack again, wasn't reaching for his sword, he was staring at her like she was the crazy one, like he hadn't just grabbed her. She lowered the knife a bit but her grip was as tight as before.

Tenten had come by to see the commotion, of course, armed already and severely pissed off. "What the hell is going on here?"

Itachi, the only one calm in the situation, drew her back to the counter, muttering in a low voice. That left Sakura, armed, with Sasuke, wounded.

"Did you do it again?" he asked. His voice was low, dangerous, and he looked like he was ready to tear her apart. She had no goddamn idea what he was talking about. She decided shaking her head was the safest option but he just seemed to get angrier. "Don't lie to me, idiot. Is that why you came here? Is this because of yesterday?"

"I came to a weapon's shop to buy weapons. That's all I want to do." She pitched her voice low, soothing. She didn't know this Sasuke, didn't know how he knew her, and she was a bit scared. Itachi didn't seem to think they would kill each other, though, and that was a comfort.

"That's the fucking problem, Sakura. I can't believe you would insist on being an idiot like this, especially now," he hissed. He was holding his cut hand loosely, and it was an old instinct to take his hurts and try to make them better. He let her grab his hand and heal it, chakra dim and warm, but he kept hold of her hand when she was done.

"Why would you do this again?" He asked.

And it hit Sakura like a fucking freight train. Why Kabuto choose to stage her death like he did, why healing chakra came so naturally to this body, why Sasuke reacted to her bleeding and healed hand.

Because it made sense, didn't it? It made perfect sense, everything fitting together neatly. Sakura wanted to be a medic. Sakura didn't have a teacher. Sakura learned how to heal to only way she knew how - by herself. She had done the worst thing a medic could do.

Because once someone starts, it's hard to give up. It's the perfect practice, right? No one has to get hurt but her. Slowly, you lose the pain, the feeling, the fear. Tsunade had warned her time and time again never to go down that path.

But Tsunade wasn't in this Konoha.

Someone had found out, obviously, Sasuke or someone who told Sasuke, and they stopped her from being a shinobi for it. A shinobi who hurt themselves more than their enemies was as useful as a sword without a handle: no control and all sharp edges.

That's why she had "quit" being a shinobi - it was a kinder story to tell. And that meant that if Kabuto had succeeded, no one would have thought it strange. No one would have thought twice about the weak girl who couldn't help but hurt herself more than she could heal.

With sudden clarity Sakura realized that even civilians in Konoha had weapons in their homes. Not Sakura, though, she had nothing but blunted utensils. Did she remove the temptation herself, or was it someone else's decision? And then how exactly did she get that knife?

No matter what, she had to deal with the Sasuke problem first. He was still holding her hand, gaze dark. Was he worried or annoyed? Probably the latter.

"Sasuke, I didn't relapse or whatever you think. Why would I do that in a public store? No, I just wanted to look at some weapons and I was too clumsy. It's been a while, you know." She winked, smiled, drew her hand back before she could think about how long it had been since he had touched her kindly. Years. A lifetime.

Sasuke looked away, frowning. Well, the wink had probably been a bit much. Whatever, she would work with what information she had, and all she had right now was that Sasuke probably didn't want to kill her. It was a great foundation for a relationship.

"Look, Sasuke, I know what I did was wrong. It was the worst thing I could have done. But healing that man in the marketplace, just thinking about it makes me what to do things the right way."

He glared. Opened his mouth. Closed it with a snap. Looked at his hand where she had cut him, entirely healed, no scar remaining.

"You want to become a medic?" His voice was a bit disbelieving, yes, but she could work with it. In fact, telling him (and by extension Itachi) was perfect. She was laying seeds within Konoha that gave credence to her quest to find Tsunade. If everyone believed she was seeking out the legendary Sannin to become a better healer it wouldn't look suspicious in the least when Sakura brought her back. This was fucking perfect.

"More than anything," she said, looking at his face and blushing. He looked uncomfortable. Some things never change. "And I think I know what to do, which is why I need supplies."

"And that is?" Itachi was back, Tenten by his side. She looked less angry, more interested. She was glancing at Sakura, and her hands and her knife, a wary look on her face. Sakura, with great effort, put the knife away. Itachi kept his eye on where it had disappeared on her body. She had cut Sasuke. He wouldn't forget that.

Well, time to do this with an audience then. "I want to find Tsunade and ask her to train me."

Sasuke fucking laughed at her. Typical as shit. Tenten was holding it in, points for her, but Itachi did look like he was taking her seriously. That could be a bad thing - if he started to consider her a threat, she would lose the only card she was holding.

She grinned, scratched the back of her head, and blushed. A cute little genin chasing her dreams, even if she was nineteen and also an assassin. Semantics.

Sasuke gave her a look of complete derision, which she found more familiar and comforting than his previous expression of worry. "You think you can find Tsunade and convince her to train you?"

"Well, why not? Anyone could find her easily enough through her gambling debts, and I think she could take me on given the right persuasion. I'm from Konoha but no longer a shinobi, which means I'm comforting but not truly representative of what she left behind. On top of that, I already of some measure of experience in healing, excellent chakra control, and enough dedication to track her down. I think I can do it."

Well, Sakura hoped she could do it. She knew it would be easy enough to find Tsunade, Naruto had done it, but she didn't know if Tsunade would take her on or return to Konoha with her. And Sakura was still debating telling Tsunade the truth of her circumstances. It ran the risk of Tsunade thinking she was crazy, but if Tsunade ended up believing her than she would have a stalwart ally by her side. They could return to the village, fix whatever was happening in the hospital with Kabuto, and then Sakura could fuck off to live in the woods or under a waterfall. Perfect.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "And if you can find her, how do you expect to get to her with the skills of a genin?"

Itachi quickly brushed his brother back and stood in front of him with the ease of a man who has had to cover for his brother's rudeness many times. "What he means, Haruno-san, is that you might consider asking for an escort and hiring a few shinobi."

"I'm not going to make this a C-rank. I can go on my own. I don't have any obligations here to hold me back, and if I'm not even a shinobi than the Hokage can't declare me missing nin." She shrugged. Looking at the two Uchiha looking at her in disbelief (and Tenten no doubt listening in the background) Sakura decided that buying weapons just wasn't worth it. Not right now at least.

She ended up in the Hokage's office a week later.

She had more memories here than she could count, painful and sweet and heartbreaking. Tsunade and Sarutobi and fucking Danzo. But instead, Minato Namikaze was in the chair, his wife Kushina by his side. Sakura didn't know how to feel, staring at the man who had chosen to seal a demon in a newborn and had been her teacher's teacher, but she didn't think it was good.

Sakura was glad Naruto and his brother weren't in the room. Seeing Naruto after all this time, after what happened - she didn't know if she could keep her composure. And the little one was just annoying, so there was that.

Itachi was in the room, she could tell, hidden in the rafters and wearing an ANBU mask. She pretended not to notice him, but she could tell he was bemused by her request.

"You want to find Tsunade and bring her back? Really?" Kushina asked. She was staring at Sakura like they had never met before, which might have been true.

Sakura so far hadn't gotten much more information about her team days other than she had been on a team with Sasuke and Naruto but she had not become a Chunin like they did, leading her to eventually stop shinobi work entirely. Certainly an illustrious career.

In her own world, the exam had been the kick in the pants to apprentice herself to Tsunade, but if Naruto had never been tasked to find Tsunade after the death of the Third Hokage, then she really would have nowhere to turn.

Sakura was truly a flower that bloomed in war. Only in hardship did she become the strongest Kunoichi in the world, a brilliant front-line medic that could heal with one hand and kill with another. This Sakura apparently wasn't anything at all. In the end, it would be smarter to lay low, but Sakura was tired of being smart. She wasn't in ANBU anymore, she didn't have to worry about her own Hokage killing her, and she missed her shishou more than she could say.

Sakura was on uneven footing with everyone in Konoha due to a past she had to part of, but Tsunade and her had never met in this universe. Now, Tsunade would only know her, not the weak Sakura who had been ignored. Sakura would do anything to start fresh, even draw undue attention to herself.

"I do. I want to track her down and see if she will take me on as an apprentice, and as a loyal citizen of Konoha I would request the permission of my Hokage." She bowed low, etiquette she had been forced to learn for Danzo. She could physically feel the surprise of the people in the room, bar Itachi who was never surprised by anything, but she kept her head down. It was in Minato's hands now. Either she got his blessing and went with grace, or she had go on the journey more quietly and return with some degree of resistance.

Before he decided, the door behind her opened explosively. Fucking Naruto, she knew, without a doubt, along with two other chakra signatures as powerful as the ANBU agent above her. With her luck, it would be Sasuke and Kakashi - all the people she was trying to avoid in one room together; ANBU agents were at the ready to destroy her if she made one slip, and escape was not an option.

"Sakura-chan? What the hell?" Naruto exclaimed off to the side. To rise or not to rise? The Hokage hadn't given permission yet, which was a convenient excuse to hide the fact that she would burst into tears at the sight of her old friend. And also Sasuke and Kakashi.

"Haruno-san, please lift your head, there's no need for such formalities between friends," Minato eventually said, embarrassment seeping into his voice. A weak Hokage then, another reason for Sakura to fetch Tsunade.

She lifted her head only to find Naruto had joined his parents behind the desk and that Kakashi and Sasuke were now leaning against the walls on opposite sides of the room. Kakashi was inscrutable but Sasuke was openly sneering at her. Joy.

"Hokage-sama, if this is a bad time I will leave and come back at your convenience. However, I ask you to take my request seriously. I have already compiled information about Tsunade's last known whereabouts and habits, as well as information about her apprentice Shizune. I am determined to make this mission a success and bring her home." Sakura brought the file out of a sealing scroll and lightly dropped in on the desk, far away enough from the Hokage that the ANBU wouldn't worry. No need to alarm any Uchiha, though she doubted that they thought she was any threat.

Poor little genin Sakura, weak and directionless, in love with any boy that crosses her path.

Naruto was the one to grab the file, flipping it through it so rapidly that she doubted he read a word. His face became shocked as he realized exactly how much information she had compiled but the library, old records, elders in the village, traveling merchants, and her own experiences. Sakura never forgot her beginning as a paper ninja.

"Sakura-chan this is incredible! How do you know so much?" he exclaimed, still flipping through the dossier that weighed about as much as an academy student. He looked at her with a new appreciation mirrored by his mother standing beside him.

"Well, a good mission requires good information. I did a lot of research in the past week, and it will all be worth it if I can track her down," she laughed, scratching the back of her head. Sasuke scoffed, she heard, but she could tell that Kakashi was getting interested. Him and the ANBU agent still silently staring at her.

It must have been out of character; Sakura had only learned the true value of preparation after joining ANBU. Team 7 had always been punch first, immediately get beat down and have Sakura heal you. After she started to work alone she realized that was a good way to get killed.

Old Sakura would never have known that, though, but it's not she could take the folder back.

"Sakura-chan this is so cool! Let me take the mission, dad, c'mon. I can bring Jiraiya, just the two of us like old times. Thanks so much, Sakura-chan," Naruto gushed, stars in his eyes and voice booming across the room. Sakura did not flinch. She was better than that.

Ok, Sakura did flinch. Naruto had never tried to exclude her like that before - they were a team. Even as Konoha felt apart around them, even as Sasuke turned traitor, even when Tsunade died they were a team. Not anymore.

She wanted to hit him like she would before - that's how they talked. But now he was the son of the Hokage, a stranger to her, and she couldn't touch him.

"Hokage-sama, I am requesting this mission for myself. In the front of the file, I have listed the reasons she may respond well to my request." She bowed again to hide her face, her emotions spilling out like they only did around Naruto. She never had this problem alone. "If asked by the son of the Hokage and her old teammate she may run due to her skittish nature and her well-documented hatred of Konoha. However, I have shown the potential to be a healer and my status as an inactive genin makes me a non-threat entirely. There is a chance she will take me on as an apprentice and return with me."

Her voice was flat, calm. She forced her hands to relax. Sakura was professional, was the best goddamn shinobi in the world, and she wasn't about to lose her chance to find Tsunade due to a Naruto that wasn't even her friend. She put up with a lot of shit but she would not go down this road without a fight. And Sakura always won her fights.

Kakashi made a noise behind her, something questioning. She didn't look. (She did.)

He looked good. Less burdened than she remembered. Same mask, same hair, same orange book in hand. Back in her Konoha, their relationship had always been complicated. He had failed her as a teacher, but he had made a good partner when she need one. They had the last two members of Team Seven standing.

Now they were all in one room and it was better and worse.

He caught her eye and winked. She tried not to react, but she couldn't stop the flinch that shook her. Ghosts all around her, each more deadly than the last.

"Ah, well," Kakashi said, still staring at her with his one eye, "Apparently she did help heal someone last week in the marketplace."

Sakura turned away and went back into a bow. She couldn't trust her own face not to reveal her secrets.

"Ah, yes, my son told me about what happened. You really saved him." Kushina sounded like she was smiling. Naruto dropped the folder, judging by the thump, and started to furiously whisper about "That's who he was talking about?" and "No way it was Sakura-chan!"

It hurt, but he wasn't wrong. From the outside, the old Sakura had been a failed shinobi and a failed medic. She had few friends, few allies, and no influence in Konoha. Who was she to save lives?

"I believe that the panic I felt helped me access my chakra like never before," Lie, lie, lie in a room full of killers. "And I think that training with Tsunade can help me more than staying in Konoha would."

The scars on her wrist burned. She could feel them itching, rubbing against the bandages she wrapped around herself this morning. Sakura had been killed in the worst way possible. And no one would have cared, not her old team and not her village.

Sakura was angry. Sakura was going to drag Tsunade back here and then tear Kabuto apart with her bare hands, would destroy his heart using the techniques she had stolen from him in the last world.

This Sakura had died, alone and bleeding out and terrified. Barely a shinobi. Betrayed. It was made to look like she was a dishonorable coward. No fucking more.

Sakura dared to look up, met the Hokage's eyes with a burning glare. "I will do anything to take this mission, Hokage-same. I wish to help Konoha anyway I can and bring its princess home. Please let me do this."

It had been so long since she had felt that famed "Will of Fire" burn within her but now she did. She felt it from her long hair to her blank forehead to her weak arms to the scars on her wrist. She was burning alive in front of the most powerful people in Konoha and she knew she could burn them down with her. She could take down this tower with one hand behind her back and laugh. She was Sakura Haruno and she wouldn't die again.

Kushina and Naruto visibly gaped at her changed mood, sensing her chakra filling the room. She stopped trying to control it. Kakashi was tensed up, as silent as ever but hands out of sight, most likely gripping a kunai or two. Sasuke was silent, remembering the cut on his hand. Wounds she caused and healed. Sakura was a walking contradiction, one Sasuke was just discovering.

Itachi, still in his mask, landed on silent feet behind Minato, but the Hokage was smiling broadly. Sakura thought she could begin to respect the fourth Hokage she had never had a chance to meet.

"You certainly have changed from your early days, Haruno-san. I can tell that sending you on this mission can only be a good thing, though I know Konoha will miss you dearly." He smiled at the end but Sakura could only grimace. No, no it would not.

She turned her grimace into a smile with little effort, realizing that he had agreed to her request. She would find her shishou and save the hospital and kill Kabuto and prove herself as the strongest shinobi in both worlds.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama, I can leave-"

"But you won't be going alone, of course." He continued, smile fixed firmly in place. Right. Of course. She gave a short nod but it didn't look like he was looking at her anymore. "Would bringing together the old Team 7 work? They could deliver you and let you talk to Tsunade in peace. You might not know this, but Naruto can be quiet."

He and Kushina laughed at Naruto's outraged yells but Sakura was more focused on what he had said. Team 7? Fuck that. Fuck Minato. Fuck her life.

Calm, calm, calm.

Sasuke chopped Naruto in the back of the head and accepted the mission. It started a fight between them, but she knew Naruto would agree to come with. Just like she knew Sasuke was wondering what the fuck was up with her.

Kakashi had crossed the room, picking up the folder Naruto dropped. He hummed as he flipped through it, more carefully than Naruto, and also voiced his assent.

It was happening, then. For the first time in years, for the first time in either universe, Team Seven was back together again for one last mission. And they were strangers.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura didn't sleep the night before she left for the mission. Instead, she paced, obsessed, planned ahead, and made contingency upon contingency. Sakura was scared for the first time in a long time, for the first time since she laid the last of the Rookie Nine to rest, for the first time since Danzo took office and Sakura realized the only thing she could feel was tired.

Sakura was tired, before, pissed off on the good days. It was difficult to feel anything. But now, here?

Sakura, younger Sakura, hadn't appreciated being weak when she was young. Who would? But being weak meant your enemies didn't care, didn't try, didn't notice. Sakura was able to kill Sasori of the Red Sands because he thought she was weak and she hadn't stopped there.

The only problem was, being weak only worked when Sakura knew what made her enemies strong. And now she didn't, not really. She knew war-torn versions of her comrades, whose skills were sharp and whose bodies were broken. She didn't know how to fight them anymore.

And she wanted to, a little bit. Because here was a perfect world, a better world, a world where her teammates were happy and Konoha was safe, and yet the old Sakura had still suffered. Still died. Even in a fucking utopia, she couldn't find happiness.

So yeah, Sakura was angry about what happened to her, whether the old her had committed suicide or whether she had been murdered. Either way, why hadn't anyone cared?

(But in her mind Sakura wondered if maybe it had been her fault. See, old Sakura had been the first to die here out of anyone, and this Sakura had been the last. Maybe she had dammed the other Sakura by daring to live when the others couldn't. Maybe if she hadn't agreed to fight under Danzo this Sakura could have been happy. But she would never know for sure and she couldn't ask anyone around her).

Sakura was old, older than she should be, and bitter. She would never be normal or fit into this Konoha. But if she knew one thing would remain constant in any world, at any time, it's that Tsunade cared. Cared about Sakura and cared about Konoha. So she would find her teacher, befriend her again, maybe challenge her to a drinking game or two, and save Konoha all in one mission.

Then she could be done. Sakura was still so tired.

Sakura didn't want to admit it, but she has had worse things happen to her. It just didn't feel like it, standing next to the gates of Konoha, Kakashi a silent presence on one side and Naruto on the other.

No, this definitely felt worse than getting stabbed, burned, poisoned, and torn apart. Just seeing them without them knowing anything about her past hurt more than sewing herself back together had felt (and that had really hurt).

And, to top it all of, Kakashi had shown up earlier than Sasuke. This universe was a goddamn mess.

"Hey, hey, Sakura-chan! It's been too long, huh? Years, right? I didn't even know you were still a kunoichi, ya know," Naruto said, hands flying everywhere and grin fixed firmly in place. But for all he was acting friendly, Sakura had the sense they hadn't been close friends in this world for years. Maybe they'd never been close, which really was just great.

"Once a shinobi, always a shinobi. Even if it has been a while." Sakura didn't look for his reaction, already predicting the embarrassment he would show, but instead subtly looked at her old teacher. This Kakashi was about as expressive (not at all) but she could sense he was paying attention.

Sakura was confident in her ability to fool her old teammates, but Kakashi was smart. He would eventually be able to tell she was different, and that was dangerous.

Was that why he showed up early - to test her? To protect Team 7 from an unknown quantity? He didn't seem suspicious, still holding that little yellow book of his.

If it came down to it, he would attack first with the kunai on his thigh, aimed for the throat. By the time she blocked it, he would have already moved, leaving a clone in his place. It's possible he would go underground, even likely given that this Sakura had never shown any particular amount of strength. Would he reach up directly or go behind her and attack with a jutsu? Regardless, destabilizing the ground would be her first priority to get him off-center. She could attack him directly, letting his attacks hurt her and then heal them off, and that would give her a good opportunity to get close and go at him with a chakra scalpel. But she would be in trouble if he used his Sharingan. She could pull out her exploding tags at that point, but she had so few, and she was hopi-

"Maa, Sakura, do I have something on my face?" Kakashi asked lightly. Shit, she had been staring at him.

"Only your mask. I was just wondering why you got here so early."

"Ah, yeah, about that…"

"I dragged him out of bed, Sakura-chan! Now if only that bastard wasn't late," Naruto trailed off, scuffing the ground with his shoe. So Kakashi told Naruto where he lived in this world? Back home, he had only told her after they were the only two members of Team 7 left, when he felt she would be in too much danger sleeping in a house alone.

But it didn't matter how much he tried to protect her. He died first and she died in the forest. She missed him. She wanted to tell her Kakashi that he had been right, that she had been attacked in her house, even if it really wasn't. She wanted to tell him that she missed him, that she forgave him for being a shitty teacher even if he didn't forgive himself, that in the end they really had worked well together.

She wanted to tell Kakashi so many things, and he was standing right in front of her and worlds away. A world and six feet of dirt, really.

Sasuke finally showed up five minutes later, Itachi and Shisui by his side. Sakura couldn't understand why this world's Sasuke wasn't as happy as Naruto: his family was alive, his brother was by his side, and he was well-respected in the village. Maybe he was like her, in a way, someone who needed war to live.

It was a sobering thought, mostly cause she fucking hated him, but she wasn't blind to the similarities.

Itachi and Shisui were two steps behind Sasuke, carrying his bags and gently reminding him of survival tips and whatnot. It was weird, seeing him babied after she had looked up to him for most of her life because he was so strong. If not an Avenger, what was he?

He looked at the rest of Team 7 that was already assembled. His skipped over her, nodded at Kakashi, and smirked at Naruto. The usual, then. She was glad the dysfunction remained true in both worlds or she really would have difficulty adjusting.

"Sakura-chan," Shisui greeted, "You look practically radiant this morning!"

She did not. Her hair was short again, cut last night by a civilian hairdresser who had lamented over her "looking like a man" the entire time. She was wearing black with one red ribbon as a final callback to her old outfit. Her gloves were chakra-conducting and had cost all of the savings in her account. She looked like she was going to war.

"Uchiha-san, you're much too kind. In fact, you're looking prettier than I do!" She smiled sweetly and then smiled again for real at Suishi's choked laughter. Yeah, she was glad she got to meet him in this world. He was cute when he laughed but he also got shit done.

And, for some reason she still wasn't quite sure of, he seemed to think she was strong. No one else in this world thought that. It was sweet, if not a bit disconcerting. She couldn't think of a reason why except they had a shared history she had no memory of. It was disconcerting but he seemed content to let it lye.

"Sakura-chan, please, please call me by my name before you depart on your epic and awe-inspiring journey! What if Tsunade-san kidnaps you and you're never seen again? What if you save Suna from a giant monster and they name you the newest Kazekage? What if-"

Sakura couldn't help it when she burst into loud peals of laughter. It echoed through the morning streets, more noise than she had made in years, and she was helpless. Goddamn, she missed being happy. Her laughter bordered in hysterical with the way it went on and on and on, but she had just really missed knowing someone friendly. Not even a friend, just friendly.

No one had joked in her Konoha. Not the civilians, not the councilmen, and not the shinobi. She had read somewhere that the first casualty of war was fun. And like every other casualty, it stayed dead.

God, that was sad.

Regardless, Shisui looked enchanted from where he lay on the packed ground, on his knees and fake pleading with her. In fact, he looked like he had never seen her laugh before. So this Sakura was also sad. Important to remember.

She helped him up, still giggling, lifting his entire body with one hand. She was too happy to remember to hide. "Now, Uchiha-san, I must be really nervous about this mission if I found your joke that funny."

"Do you want backup? I'll protect you!" He waggled his eyebrows at her but something seemed off. The gleam in his eyes told her that he had noticed her strength, at the way she wasn't truly nervous at all for her "first" mission. He wanted to come, she could see, if only to find out what was wrong with her. But still, she couldn't detect ill-intent, no suspicion.

Itachi, on the other hand, was lighting up like a goddamned fireworks show with doubt. The way he looked at her, the fact that he was looking at her at all, was enough proof to show what he thought of her.

Like always, Sasuke had immediately been absorbed in Naruto's infectious energy, so those two were out for the count, but Kakashi was a silent presence behind her. She had never once thought that her sensei behind her could be a threat instead of a blessing, but things changed. Sakura changed.

So, three shinobi watching her, one suspicious, one friendly, and one Kakashi (unidentifiable at the best of times). How to defuse? Well, if all else fails, fall back on what you know. Because even before Sakura was a shinobi, a warrior, a killer, she was a fangirl.

"Oh, Sensei, please! Could we bring Shusui? He's so cute, so much cuter than Naruto!" She wrinkled her nose in fake disgust and pulled Shisui into a hug, turning away from Itachi at the same time to face Kakashi. The lovestruck expression was easier to make than ever, making Sakura think that this version of her was A. actually in love or B. also a giant fucking liar.

Naruto squeaked in protest in the background as Saskue shot her a disdainful look but Kakashi merely snorted in amusement. Good, or bad? Shusui seemed content enough to go with the illusion, also adopting a pleading expression, but the way he gripped her back made her think he wasn't believing this either.

Kakashi stepped away from the pillar he had been leaning against and came closer, close enough to see the facial expressions behind his dammed mask. He studied her, eyes crinkled in faked amusement, before making a put-upon sigh and patting her on the head.

"Unfortunately, your sensei is getting too old to adopt any more children, even one as cute as Shisui, You'll just have to settle for us, Sakura-chan."

Bastard. He could tell Shisui could turn into her ally and was thereby removing him from the situation entirely. Now she knew he suspected her, however, and she could make her plans accordingly.

Besides, Sakura had learned that she had always worked better alone regardless. She had learned to live without a team and grown stronger for it, and she had faced worst odds than an Uchiha, the Kyuubi container, and Kakashi of the Sharingan.

Well, maybe not. But she would learn to.

Sasuke, apparently fed up with a circus act that didn't revolve around him, picked Shisui up to separate him and Sakura and then threw his cousin at Itachi. "Leave us alone and stop encouraging her stupid behavior. Let's just get this joke mission over with."

Shisui picked himself up and started complaining to Sasuke but Sakura still felt Itachi's and Kakashi's eyes on her. The same question arose in her mind - should she tell someone? Could she? On one hand, less chance she would be treated as an enemy all the time, but there was also a chance that she would be thrown into the bowels on T.I., never to be seen again. Or someone higher up would hear about it, the same someone who arranged her murder, and would try again. And Sakura for all her strength was not infallible, especially with this undertrained body.

No, she had to keep quiet and explain herself in a different way. She just didn't know how. What could adequately explain the sudden and all-consuming change she went through except for what actually happened?

Fuck. Long ago Sakura had been a paper ninja, able to plan and plot well enough to get herself to the top of the class. She could still do that, given time and privacy, but she had a feeling Kakashi would be keeping both of he eyes on her in the near future. It's what she would do when faced with an unknown quantity.

So she didn't have a convincing lie, not yet. She would think of one, probably, hopefully. Maybe if Kakashi left her alone long enough for her to think. She didn't think he would.

"Are we gonna go yet? I want to find Tsunade already!" Naruto yelled in the background. It broke the tension that had surrounded the group and soon enough it seemed like they were going to go. Before they passed through the gates, however, Sakura felt her pocket grow heavier, almost as if someone too fast to see had slipped her a letter.

Sakura had decided covering up her ability wasn't worth the lost time, so despite the fact that it gave her chakra control away, she kept pace with her three teammates. She could tell that everyone, even Naruto noticed, but she just gave a grin and said she had done some practice in preparation for the journey.

Camp that night was silent, broken up by Naruto and Sasuke fighting over who caught the most food or who made the best tent. She ignored it and crawled in her tent early, confident in the fact that she would be left alone until her turn for watch.

In the privacy of her tent she was confident enough the open the letter. She tested it with her chakra first, waving her hand over it and waiting for a spark, but it wasn't trapped. She settled in her bedroll and opened it, still slightly bracing for an acid spray. Nothing.

Well, not nothing.

" _Dear Sakura,_

 _Or maybe not Sakura. Dear whatever is hiding in Sakura's skin,_

 _We need to talk. Find the crow._

 _Shisui."_

What the hell? Find the crow? She remembered, faintly, that the Uchiha family had crow and cat summons. That meant Shisui was probably following her on this mission. And he knew, something, maybe all of it. They really did have to talk then, but how to do it without Kakashi hearing? And could she trust Shisui?

She knew enough about his past, his devotion to his family and his village. If he was so protective, there must be a reason he was letting her live, letting her near his cousin. She really had to find the crow.

Her tent jostled and Kakashi came through the front flap. In a second he took in her sleeping bag, her weapons laid out neatly waiting to be counted and cleaned, her armor, her scrolls, and the silencing seals drawn on the tent. He probably expected flowers or fairy lights or something.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, I hope this isn't too inappropriate," he grinned.

"Of course not, sensei, it's been too long since we talked!"

"You're right. In fact, I can't even remember how long." His hand drifted to his headband covering his Sharingan, So, they were doing this now, here. Private enough without her teammates, but if a fight broke out they would be immediately involved.

Then out of his jacket he pulled out a crow. "Mind explaining this, Sakura-chan? Getting midnight visitors on a mission is pretty naughty. I expected better from my adorable kouhai."

The crow pecked at Kakashi's hand before jumping out and landing next to Sakura. It squawked disapprovingly but was forced to jump when Kakashi threw a kunai at it. Sakura blocked it with a kunai of her own, hating that fact that the tent really only allowed her enough room to move on her knees.

Next, a senbon was thrown, then a knife, then three kunai at once. Sakura did her best to block all of them, but the small space meant that the last kunai thrown would either hit the crow or they would hit her. It wasn't really a decision.

They lodged themselves in her upper right arm, not poisoned and sharped enough that she could barely feel it. Kakashi reared back, almost as if he hadn't expected her to move in the way, and with a rush of wind, the crow transformed into a very angry Shisui. The tent was getting pretty fucking crowded.

"What the hell, Kakashi?" Shisui shouted, trying to launch his own senbon. Sakura, who was quite tired of being in the middle of a firefight in a tent the size of a small broom closet, decided to also take those to her other arm. Also not poisoned, thankfully.

"Can we stop?" She shouted. With her right arm she dug out the senbon, healing as she went, and then with her left, she dug out the kunai, She rotated her arms to get rid of the stiffness but it was mostly her shirt that was left worse for wear. She didn't put on armor to go to sleep and that was probably a failing on her part.

Shisui and Kakashi both managed to look contrite and suspicious at the same time, probably because a ninja was always suspicious in some way, shape, or form, and once again Sakura was left with the question of what the fuck she was going to do. Shisui most definitely knew her old self, however, their relationship was unknown, and Kakashi knew something, even if he didn't know what it meant, However, both were looking at her like she was a mix between an ally and an enemy. Like how her teammates in ROOT and ANBU looked at her. Like Naruto looked at her after she had finished burying the last of the Uchiha line. She didn't like the look all that much.

The look disappeared quickly and was replaced by a frantic search for bandages that Sakura endured for all of five seconds before she chopped the two of them in the heads.

"They're healed, okay, now can we discuss why my tent has turned into a fucking war zone?"

"Now I know you're not Sakura," Shisui replied, palming some more senbon. She rolled her eyes but knew that she was at the moment caught between two of the deadliest shinobi in Konoha with backup for them right outside her door. Fighting wouldn't be an option and she would never be faster than Shisui. So, talking it was. And considering both men had a Sharingan that could detect all her tells, it seemed like she would have to tell the truth.

"Okay, I'm going to explain the situation and you two need to behave like good little shinobi and listen. We all know right now that I'm at your mercy in this situation, so let me explain before you start launching more senbon."

Kakashi snorted but minutely relaxed against one of the tent poles. Shisui awkwardly crawled out from behind her to sit next to him, granting her a little ease without an enemy at her back. She could tell they were both primed for a fight but their experience as ANBU agents meant they valued information over action, thankfully.

"I'll start with this. Three weeks ago, I was an elite ANBU agent, trained by ROOT, working for the Hokage himself. Two weeks ago I was killed in action and found myself waking up in an unfamiliar bathroom with unfamiliar wounds." She pulled up her sleeves to show the scars on her wrist she still had yet to heal. She left them as a reminder - she couldn't forget the Sakura who came before her.

"I healed them and noticed both a monitor tag on my ankle and a dead man at my door - Kabuto."

Both Kakashi and Shisui raised their eyebrows at Sakura for calling Kabuto a dead man but didn't react beyond that. They were trained well for not laughing hysterically at her story.

"I found myself in a Konoha I don't recognize, confronted with past actions I have no memory of. I found myself an ex-shinobi, a failed medic-nin, and with slit wrists. I concluded that-"

She hesitated. What she was about to say sounded crazy and she honestly didn't know how to get it out. She could barely put it together in her own head, how was she supposed to explain it to strangers?

Shisui touched her wrists then, almost a guilty look on his face. She let him study the scars and decided to forge on.

"I concluded that I am not in my Konoha, just another Konoha, with another Sakura who died at the same time I did, albeit in different circumstances. Except when I came here I could do what your Sakura couldn't - heal my wounds. I somehow ended up in a different world, a different timeline, with all the same players but a very different history, a different Hokage, a different everything.

"I want to find Tsunade because as far as I can tell the circumstances around the old Sakura's death are beyond suspicious: the monitoring tag, Kabuto arriving directly afterward, the fact that she committed after trying to apply for a hospital job-"

"Then what do you think happened?" Kakashi asked, knuckles tight around his book. She couldn't tell if he believed her or if he was humoring her but either way he sounded interested enough.

"I think Sakura found something going on in the hospital, something wrong having to do with Kabuto, and she was murdered and made to kill herself. Maybe the scene was staged or maybe a Yamanaka got into her head. Either way, she wasn't meant to survive."

Shisui made a stained sound and seemingly collapsed on the floor then, still holding on to her wrists.

"It's true," he said, causing Kakashi and Sakura to turn to him in surprise. "I was the one who sent you into the hospital."

The tent was silent, a loud silence, for a minute before Kakashi pinned Shisui to the floor, kunai to the eye. "If what everyone has said so far is true, does that mean you got a civilian killed doing your dirty work, Shisui?"

For a second, the tense scene around her faded away, until nothing was in her head but the echo of "civilian."

Civilian. Nobody. No relation or history. Kakashi, her failed sensei, her stalwart partner, her last ally, called her a civilian. And Sakura knew, of course, that this Kakashi wasn't hers, didn't belong to her, didn't know her, but it ripped through her heart like a fist regardless.

In this world, she truly had been nothing. And maybe that was kinder, in a sense. Sakura was strong, stronger than everyone else it seemed, and it meant that she was the one forced to survive them all. Forced to remember. Even now, she wasn't dead.

She was too good at introspection these days.

With a pinch to the ribs, she brought herself back and shoved Kakashi's weapon away. Shisui was still lying prone on the floor but the blood from the cuts she received to her hands dripped on his face and made him flinch. She didn't bother healing them before turning to Shisui and telling him with a glare to explain.

"What I'm about to tell you is top secret-"

"I'm loyal to Konoha!" Kakashi practically snarled, bloody kunai in hand.

"Are you loyal to whoever killed Sakura? Our Sakura?" Shisui pressed. "I'm loyal to my village, to my Hokage, but something is rotten in the hospital. I only know because the police force continues to get reports of missing children, orphans and urchins, from the surrounding provinces. Some genin, even."

He sat up then, rubbing his eyes with tired hands and smearing the blood on his cheeks. He saw the stain on his palms and flinched. "There's been suspicion for some time about how Orochimaru runs the hospital, about the councilman in charge, Danzo, and I wanted to see if I could get a way inside."

"So you went to a civilian?" Kakashi's voice was biting, and Sakura could tell how emotional he was by the way he was turned to Shisui and away from her, a potential enemy.

"Sakura had medical experience and enough kunoichi training to lie. But, more than that-"

"She came to you, didn't she?" Sakura asked softly, mind awhirl. It made sense, in a way. Sakura would always want to best for Konoha, would always fight even without weapons.

"Yo- she did," Shisui said, "And she was pretty insistent about it. I don't know why she came to me though, why she chose me instead of Itachi or Sasuke. Maybe if she ha-"

"It's simple, really. Sakura knew Sasuke would never take her or her accusations seriously, and she also knew telling Itachi meant Sasuke would find out. However, she still needed to go to someone in the police force she knew wouldn't be involved, so you were the clear solution. Trusted by her old team and teacher but not to close to any of them. You were perfect for her."

Sakura waved her hands to demonstrate, appreciating the logic of the other Sakura. Shisui would have been the best choice and she could see why she trusted him. He was good and kind, a rare thing for a shinobi and an invaluable trait in a partner.

Waving her arms around meant her hand bled again and Kakashi tossed her a roll of bandages, still barely looking in her direction. She ignored them and healed herself again.

"So," Kakashi drawled dangerously, "You sent a civilian to spy upon one of the legendary Sannin, one who you're accusing of treason, without any backup?"

"She thought up the plan! She said if we had too much contact that the operation would be compromised!" Shisui shouted defensively.

"It was anyway."

Shisui once again turned away at Kakashi's comment. Sakura rotated her arm, looked at her wrist, and decided that this tent was getting a little stuffy.

"So she died. Let's find out why."

"And you're her but from another world?" Kakashi turned to her, the attention off Shisui.

"Basically, yes. I'm Sakura Haruno, born March twenty-eighth to Hizashi and Mebuki Haruno. Blood-type O, second in my genin class, known as the rookie nine, and part of Team 7. I was a paper ninja, first and foremost, best friends with Ino Yamanaka before we split over our mutual infatuation with Sasuke Uchiha. My teacher was Hatake Kakashi but he dismissed me and my lack of motivation in favor of training Sasuke to use his Sharingan and Naruto to control his massive amounts of chakra."

She shrugged her shoulders defeatedly. "In this world, I decided to become a medic-nin and was forced to become my own teacher, trainer, and victim. I was discovered and summarily dismissed from the genin corps. I have few friends around Konoha. I must have discovered something wrong in the hospital and went to Shisui about it, only to be killed for my efforts. That's what I know."

Kakashi made a complicated expression behind his mask and drummed his fingers on his book. "You could have discovered that by spying."

Sakura shook her head. "You were my teacher and Shisui was my partner. You can tell my chakra signature is slightly different but still the same at its core - you know I'm Sakura, just not the Sakura you knew."

"And you expect me to believe you were in ANBU?" he questioned, shifting to the side. She could tell he was in full interrogation mode now, and her answers now would either save her or put her in a torture cell. She did notice, however, that he didn't mention ROOT. She filed that away for later.

For now she nodded and traced on her upper arm the tattoo all ANBU agents recieved. "Codename was Rat." Kakashi raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't well-liked, I suppose."

"And how did a medic-nin end up in ANBU? Assuming you were a medic-nin."

"In my world, I was trained by Tsunade. I was more than just a medic-nin."

Shisui pounced up from his defeated sprawl on the floor to stare intently at her forehead. "Did you have the seal?"

She nodded and tapped at where it had been. "I did by fifteen after training for a few years."

Kakashi stared at her intently. "Fifteen? After only a few years of training?"

"I was a good student, and Tsunade an even greater teacher. She made me who I am."

"And that's why you want to find her," Shisui said, staring at her bloody hands, but Sakura shook her head.

"I want to find her because your Sakura died trying to fix whatever is happening in Konoha and I know Tsunade is the only person strong enough to finish what you two started. Especially if it's against a Sannin."

Shisui nodded and opened his mouth, probably to ask about her training or her seal, but was interrupted by Kakashi shoving him to the floor and stabbing three senbon into Sakura's heart.


	4. Chapter 4

Her first thought upon being stabbed in the chest with a couple of senbon is "Man, I'm glad he didn't use his hand."

Hands are messy, really, with blood and heart matter going everywhere.

Her second thought upon being stabbed in the chest with a couple of senbon is "Well, this is Kakashi."

And that's the crux of the matter, really, because Sakura was expecting to be killed days ago, weeks ago. In her Konoha, an interloper like herself would have been discovered and dismantled within hours. So, when telling two ANBU agents point blank that she's wearing old Sakura like a meat suit, she expected the attack.

She was pleasantly surprised, however, when the three senbon in her chest didn't touch her heart. Kakashi had gone nonlethal in his approach, meaning this was possibly just a test of her healing capabilities. Sakura had undergone worst tests.

So, with Shisui's shocked exclamations in the background and Kakashi's stare penetrating into her forehead, she pulled the senbon out and healed herself, just like the other day in the marketplace. She could feel the hit to her reserves now, after a day of traveling and an unexpected night of healing, but Sakura was unparalleled in her ability to ration to the smallest amount of chakra possible to heal a wound. As Tsunade put it, she went beyond chakra control to just being plain stingy. It had been funny at the time.

She tossed Kakashi's senbon back at him (which he lazily blocked with his book) before patting her chest solidly enough to show it's newly healed state. "Happy now?"

"Maa, you really were a student of Tsunade, hm?"

Shisui then delivered a solid kick to Kakashi's stomach, folding the older man in half. "You tried to kill her for a stupid test?"

"If it's any consolation, Uchiha-san, they weren't actually lethal." She tried patting him consolingly on the shoulder but it seemed like he was still tense. She tried to picture an ANBU agent not being used to violence before she realized he wasn't used to violence between teammates, friends. Konoha was a village where teamwork was everything and Kakashi was the poster child for it.

But this Sakura wasn't Kakashi's teammate. This Sakura took Kakashi's teammate's life, body, and soul and paraded it around. This Sakura wasn't just a stranger to Kakashi, she was an enemy.

So Sakura wasn't mad. Sakura remembered the fourth shinobi war, the dirty trenches, and the bloodstained shinobi, remembered seeing old friends and enemies jerking their way across the battlefield, puppeted around even after their death.

Sakura was controlling Kakashi's teammate like a puppet, and in his shoes she would have done much worse than throw some nonlethal senbon.

"If she's being honest, it wouldn't hurt, and if she's not, we could easily take her to T.I." Kakashi drawled as he unfolded himself from the floor. He was stuck between serious and ambivalent, too shocked by Sakura to decide upon a persona.

So Sakura got it, she did, but she was also angry, the kind of angry special to being stabbed in the chest. So, with a charming grin, she turned to Kakashi and said "Extra credit!" before taking a chakra scalpel to his Achilles Tendon.

He was up with a curse, face twisted into a snarl, but just as quickly as she had cut him she healed him right up, still grinning.

Shisui from his spot in the tent looked very unhappy.

"Maa, I deserve that, don't I?"

"Don't you want me to show off the full extent of Tsunade's teachings?" The tent was silent for a moment, each occupant wondering who was going to get stabbed next, before Sakura started rooting around for her notebook. She undid the seal she had layered over top of it and opened to the next blank page, pen in hand.

"So, Shisou, tell me about the hospital."

It wasn't pretty. By all accounts, Orochimaru was the perfect head of the only hospital in Konoha, turning the once unorganized building into a well-oiled machine. He was efficient, he was committed, and he was good at what he did. The bureaucratic oversight was done by Councilman Danzo, who used to advise the Hokage but was mysteriously given a new position by Minato.

According to Shisou and the records in the Uchiha police department, several missing persons cases all lead to the hospital. On top of that, some workers reported discrepancies in drug inventory - those same workers were soon fired and refused to talk to the police again. Danzo had neatly consolidated power around the hospital and any rich citizens who helped fund it, making it so even Minato couldn't see deep into what went on within the hospital. All in all, it was exactly what Sakura feared it would be.

Shisou's report finished within about an hour, all of it recorded by Sakura and most likely memorized by Kakashi. She tapped her pen against the paper, thinking hard before she was interrupted by Kakashi taking the notebook out of her hands and studying the page.

"ROOT mentioned again. What exactly is it, then?" He asked, nonchalantly flipping through the earlier pages. She tore the notebook out of his hand and whacked him over the head unconsciously, a move she often repeated in their time as partners together. They both froze, staring at the journal between them before Sakura cleared her throat.

"In my world," she said carefully, parsing out what to reveal and what to keep hidden, "Danzo retained his position as one of the most powerful men in Konoha and used that to form a secret offshoot of ANBU called ROOT, almost exclusively filled with children he took, brainwashed, and experimented on in order to make them perfect soldiers."

Shisou startled next to her. "You were a part of that?"

"After Danzo became Hokage, every shinobi was subject to his whims and orders. ROOT was his personal army and we were all made his soldiers." She practically spat out the words. She remembered the cold underground hallways, the empty dorms they were forced into. She hadn't a part of ROOT for long before her inability to be controlled was covered and she was killed, but it was long enough to make her stomach turn. There was no place farther from Konoha than ROOT, buried in her village's own heart.

Kakashi was stone-faced during her tirade but Shisou looked almost sick. Once again, Sakura thought him too kind by half in a world where a heart is a blazing target. She liked him all the more for it, liked him how she loved Naruto's infallible goodness. Sometimes, being kind can be a shinobi's greatest weapon. It's almost never enough.

"How could an organization like that exist without us knowing?" Shisou whispered and Sakura thought:

Well, it was mostly white noise going through her head. The giant toad summons in the room - the Uchiha Massacre. Possibly the most important difference between the two worlds. How was she supposed to explain it? Could she?

She decided no, not now. Probably never. It was one part her being unable to explain it and one part wondering that if telling Shisou the truth could destroy him. She couldn't imagine how he would react knowing he gave his life to save his family and Danzo destroyed them anyway. Sakura was many things, make into a weapon and a murderer and a liar, but she wasn't cruel. In the mornings she would wake up, look in the mirror of an apartment that didn't belong to her and never would, and told herself she would be better. Would at least try to be what this Konoha deserved. So no, she wasn't going to tell Shisou until Danzo was already in the ground.

"He had too much power in my world," she concluded would be the best truthful workaround, "And he was very good at using it."

"So now he's using what he has to build an army out of experiments in the hospital with the help of Orochimaru and Kabuto," Kakashi finished for her.

"Bingo."

Kakashi chuckled then caught himself and she had to mentally catch herself as well. The two of them were really the last ones standing when all was said and done, and that meant they knew each other better than anyone. Or they did. The two of them in the tent were the last ones left, an unmatched set, a Sakura who knew her partner too well and a Kakashi that forgot his student entirely.

Shisou ground his fists into his eyes in frustration. "Goddamit, how long has this been going on?"

"We can't really know. Maybe since he started working for the hospital. Maybe since Orochimaru was appointed the head," Sakura shrugged. Kakashi started twirling a senbon between his fingers distractedly, searching his own memory for anything he could dig up about ROOT or Danzo.

"What I don't get," he eventually said, "Is how Sakura found out before even the Hokage."

Sakura and Shisou both paused to consider it before Sakura's gaze was drawn back to her wrists. "Kakashi, was it common knowledge among shinobi why Sakura was dismissed from the genin corps?"

He picked up on her train of thought immediately. "No, but Orochimaru was the one she originally asked for training."

"And I'm assuming she had to go to the hospital when she hurt herself more than she could heal."

"So," Shisou interrupted with dawning horror, "Danzo actually came to you knowing you someone with a skill for healing-"

"But no formal training," Sakura concluded. "Perfect to work in the hospital and perform illegal experiments."

"And Sakura immediately went to Shisou about it and tried to act as a spy inside the domain of the best liar in Konoha. And that's why she was killed." The senbon Kakashi had been holding was thrown into the ground with such force that it buried itself. Sakura couldn't even see the top of it.

And there's was Kakashi's infamous sense of guilt. Over Sakura's fate, over her time as a genin all those years ago, and over the fact that in her time of need she didn't trust her old sensei. On one hand, Sakura was worried for Kakashi, she couldn't help it, but on the other hand, she knew that this guilt would cement him as one of the most formidable allies she could find. She would get her partner back, even if it was just a shadow of him.

"Shit," Shisou swore viciously. vocalizing what the other two occupants in the tent were too trained to say. "So, now Tsunade then. You think she can fix this?"

"And how did you meet Tsunade in your 'world,' Rat?" Kakashi asked. Sakura inwardly flinched at the name but accepted the reasons for why it was given and decided it was worth fighting about. But she did find it funny that Kakashi could barely say the name 'Sakura' at all, either calling her a civilian or reducing her to an agent. Then again, Naruto would sooner give up on his dream of being Hokage than Kakashi would stop being a village full of issues.

"She became Hokage when I was twelve and I asked her to be my mentor. That's how I met her. And she was one of the strongest, bravest, most honorable shinobi I ever knew. And she is the one person I trust to destroy Orochimaru, Danzo, and Kabuto."

"Was?"

"Most everyone from my world is a 'was,'" Sakura said softly. Shisou reached for her hand then, barely brushing the top of her palm. She tried to grasp his hand but her fingers wouldn't answer and eventually, Shisou drew back.

Kakashi also seemed softer, more of a tired soldier than a wary ANBU agent. "You were the last of your team?"

"I was the last of every team in the Rookie Nine. I was the last truly loyal shinobi in Konoha."

Shisou gasped. "How?"

"It's the price of immortality, I suppose, and that's what the seal grants to a user strong enough."

"But you did die. That's how you're here." Kakashi was blunt and Shisou hit him for it but Sakura appreciated the clinical tone. It wasn't easy to talk about her own death.

"I had used my seal full up just weeks ago trying to save Suna. The Hokage had sent a hidden squad to release Suna's jinchūriki. It was…. a natural disaster. I did everything I could to save as many as I could."

"Could it have been done deliberately to deprive you of your seal?" Kakashi wondered aloud.

Shisou punched the ground. "How could someone like that every become Konoha's Hokage?"

"He murdered anyone who could oppose him and bought the civilian citizens, those left of them, with a combination of money and fear."

"And you won't tell us who it is?" Kakashi looked poised to throw some more senbon at her but she didn't break.

"If our plan to stop what's happening at the hospital works we won't have to worry about it."

"And we should take your word for it?"

Sakura snorted. "You've already trusted me with something impossible, why stop? Konoha will always be my priority, no matter what. Not the man wearing the Hokage's robes but the village. What it stands for. Who stands with it."

Her hands were shaking again, she noticed, and she clasped them together. Shisou let out his breath in a whoosh, chuckling slightly. He turned to Kakashi and they did a bit of silent communication, the kind earned through years of partnership. Sakura did her very best not to feel bitter. She, as always, failed.

"Okay," Kakashi finally said, "We'll find Tsunade. I'm assuming you're telling her?"

"Yes. She'll know if we try to pull something over on her."

"Okay. Once we tell her, we're revisiting this conversation."

Sakura's sigh of relief almost made her collapse. This was a better outcome than she could have expected, honestly. Shisou gave a small laugh, the kind one makes after experiencing an adrenaline high. She gave a grin in return that only made him laugh harder. She hadn't experienced that kind of teasing in a while and, hoping she wasn't too rusty, threw his own letter at him.

"What kind of secret ninja," she said, laughing, "Let's the enemy know that he's onto them?" Shisou batted ineffectually at the projectile before Kakashi picked it up, read it over, and then punched Shisou in the head.

"This is the worst thing you could have done, Shisou. What the hell?"

"Well, I mean, I thought she was friendly at least! She healed the man in the marketplace!" Shisou's impassioned defense sent Sakura into another fit of hysterics.

"Kami, Shisou, how are you a police officer, much less a shinobi?" She kept laughing but petered out after she noticed the tent hadn't laughed with her. Instead, Shisou was looking at her in curiosity and fear.

"Did your Shisou not tell you, Sakura?" he asked. Sakura didn't know how to respond so she just shook her head no and tried to change the subject.

"Isn't your shift coming up, Kakashi?"

Kakashi nodded and turned to Shisou, giving him the eyebrows again. Shisou nodded then turned to look sadly at Sakura again. "I'll follow you in crow form for now. As far as Konoha is concerned, I'm on an extended visit to some outer towns to talk about the disappearances. So, you know, I'm not lying."

Sakura nodded, still not trusting her voice, and in a flash, Shisou was gone with one parting touch to the hand. That left Sakura and Kakashi alone, something she both would kill for and something she would die to avoid. It wasn't going to be fun, basically.

"Rat, why did you ask Tsunade to be your teacher?" He finally asked, positioned to be out of the tent in seconds if he didn't like her answer.

"You know why," was all she could say, but as he nodded and moved out of the tent she couldn't help calling after him. "I forgave you for it."

He didn't reply.

She woke herself up the next morning three hours before dawn. It was cold, as summer mornings are, with the sense of impending rain hanging over the small camp. She took time to put on her clothes - black, nondescript, and which covered every inch of her skin - before she forced herself to face the outside world.

In the confines of a tent, nothing had to be what it was. Sakura could be home, or in the past, or maybe in a future where the world is a kinder place for children with dreams. Where young girls don't have to burn their friend's body in the woods or in a trench. Where she never learned to be so cold.

But outside the tent, she saw Naruto and the fantasy was forced to end. He was sitting in front of the campfire, a luxury they would soon not have during the nights, and looked like he was concentrating intently on a kettle. It was odd for him to be making ramen at the end of his shift but she didn't want to draw attention to herself, so instead she just quietly sat down across from him.

That seemed to have the opposite effect of what she had been going for and the instant he realized she was there he was up with a shout.

"Sakura-chan, when did you get so sneaky?" He mimed crying, or maybe he was actually crying, and sat back down again in a huff.

The kettle started to steam but didn't whistle, confusing Sakura until she caught the edge of a seal. It was silenced as to not wake anyone else. It was kind of Naruto to do that and unexpected as well.

Her Naruto was kind, of course, all kindness and heart even to the end. He turned his humanity and compassion into a shield and a sword, could have saved the world with it in any other scenario. Her Naruto was kind enough to make her cry, but he was loud about his kindness. His kindness was over-the-top, something seen coming from a mile away, and so unsubtle in its approach it was charming.

So the silencing seal surprised her. What surprised her even more is when Naruto poured the hot water into a mug, stared at it intently until the tea inside steeped, and then handed it to her with a sheepish grin.

"I forgot milk and sugar, but I remember you bringing tea to training sometimes, and I thought it would totally get you ready for the mission!"

Sakura - who was an ANBU agent, who survived a war, who took three senbon to the chest last night, who looked in the eyes of dead men and smiled – started to cry. Silent tears because nothing could make her scream out loud anymore, but tears nonetheless. She didn't even grab the mug she was too surprised because this was Naruto, her best fucking friend, her hero, giving her tea when he didn't even know her, not really. Her Naruto had fought for her, with her, had bandaged her wounds when she ran out of chakra healing him, had died trying to give Konoha the Hokage it deserved. But she couldn't remember if he had ever made her tea.

So Sakura grabbed the mug and cried and Naruto panicked in the background and she couldn't find it in herself to be composed. She was a world away from year and what felt like a decade away from happiness and she hadn't cried in so fucking long so she cried now, in some small throwaway camp in the middle of the forest. She cried because she missed her family more than she could say and even in this mirror of her reality she would never really get them back. She cried because she really did like tea.

"Thank you, Naruto. I'm excited to be on this mission with, with you." Her voice only marginally cracked, something she was proud of. Naruto was staring at her with concern, eyes broadcasting every emotion, before he lunged around the fire to give her a big hug. The force of his affection nearly made her spill her tea but a hand pressed against the mug and offered a counterbalance. Naruto had planned to be so enthusiastic then, but still wanted her to have her tea.

Was it his parents that allowed him to be so consciously kind? That gave him tools he never had before? Was it his parents that gave him kindness he could turn on and off, so dismissive in the Hokage's office and so sweet in camp?

Sakura didn't know. She didn't even know if she cared. Naruto had made her tea. Shisou trusted her. Even Kakashi knew the truth and was still going to find Tsunade. Naruto had made her tea.

She would give herself this cry. She really hadn't slept in the past few weeks/years and she deserved it.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head in the familiar way he always did and gave her the same smile he always gave. "You're welcome, but if you're so happy I can make you tea whenever, Sakura-chan!"

"Really?" She asked, smile teasing the edge of her lips. Naruto's ability to say impossible things and believe in them wholeheartedly was something she had missed.

"Yeah, believe it! I know we haven't talked a lot cause I've been training hard to be the Hokage but you were so cool the other day! I bet you could be like the Vice Hokage if you wanted to be!" Sakura laughed at that and she couldn't even tell if he was choking. But he was nice and the tea was warm and the morning was quiet. Sakura had never had so many nice things happen at once in the longest time and she was going to treasure this, goddamnit. Because Naruto wouldn't lie to her, not in this universe and maybe not in any universe. Naruto wouldn't interrogate her in a weapon's store or try to kill her to prove a point – Naruto trusted her. And she knew it was dangerous for him to trust so easily, knew he shouldn't, but Sakura reveled in it. Though she could stay in this Konoha once all was said and done if that meant she could have her best friend back.

Sakura gave herself plenty of allowances that morning, until the tea ran cold and Naruto went back to his tent. Sakura let herself be happy.

Then she got back to work.

They traveled for four days on the way to Tsunade's most likely whereabouts. It was silent for the most part, for which Sakura was thankful, but she could tell things weren't really perfect.

Kakashi and Shisou had another few meetings in her tent trying to hammer out a general plan, but the conversations weren't as productive as they could have been given Sakura's reluctance to reveal too much detail about her world and Kakashi's reluctance to acknowledge her existence. It was getting pretty fucking annoying. Shisou was trying at the very least, but she had a feeling he was wary of her as well.

He should be, she knew, but it still hurt.

Third night, third meeting, he had asked her what she planned to do when they won. Never if, with Shisou, always when. Kakashi then gave her a look, almost the first time he had looked at her all day, and in an instant their language was formed. Because Sakura was more like Kakashi than ever before - a child soldier, carrying remnants of dead friends - and both of them knew that Sakura didn't have a plan for after. Or, more accurately, she did and it involved dying or leaving forever.

And then Shisou saw the look and understood what it meant because despite everything he really was an ANBU agent, and then he got angry because why would Sakura waste her life like that anyway? And then Kakashi got pissy and started yelling because she wasn't Sakura, and then both started yelling at each other and Sakura left the fucking tent.

So it could be better. (Kakashi, despite being one of the fastest ninjas alive, did end up with bird shit on his uniform the next morning, and Sakura laughed so hard that even Naruto told her to be quiet. Sasuke was silent in such a way that everyone knew he was silent and it was for a very important reason.)

Team Seven was left in a surprisingly quiet mission until the small village of Jecho rose out of the forest. It was a small place, surrounded by woods and bisected by a river; it subsisted mostly on trade and travelers, which meant the three biggest buildings in town were the inn, the brothel, and the gambling den.

They stopped about 500 feet from the perimeter, hoping Tsunade wouldn't sense Naruto's monster chakra, and tried to come to an agreement about who would go in and who would stay behind.

"I'm going!" cried Naruto.

"No, I'm going, idiot," snarled Sasuke.

"We're both going!" cried Naruto, and on and on and on until Sakura wished Kakashi would throw a chidori her way instead of some measly senbon.

Sakura sent a pulse of chakra to Kakashi and caught his eye, hoping he would work with her as an operative if not a person. He tapped his finger on the edge of his book - twenty five. She would have twenty five minutes then, to find Tsunade, before Kakashi would lose control of the boys. She could do that.

Her substitution with the log twenty feet below was seamless, and she was confident enough in her shadow clone to be a believable Sakura. One who was quiet, didn't talk, didn't fight.

She was in the town, chakra masked and hair up, not thirty seconds later. Another half a minute after that and she was in the casino. No time to waste and all that.

The building had one floor and was about as big as Sakura's childhood home. There were only a few tables and from first glance Sakura could tell Tsunade wasn't here. She released a heavy sigh before letting her hair down, unzipping the front of her shirt a bit, hiding her weapons, and sauntering over to the barkeep.

He was young, mostly staring at the waitresses walking around, but seemed confident enough behind the bar to make Sakura think this had been his job for quite a while. With any luck, he had seen Tsunade pass through and maybe even heard her drunkenly ramble about her next destination.

"Sake, please," she asked, bending over the bar just a bit. He took a peak and winked at her before turning around and sighing.

"I'm afraid we're out, miss. Can I get you anything else, something fruity, perhaps?" His hand moved to touch hers on the table and she giggled at the contact. Her other hand toyed with an empty shot glass on the bar as she pouted.

"Did my sister drink it all up again?" She collapsed on the bar in exasperation and she knew she already had him, plus every other patron of the bar, hooked. "Tsunade always drinks too much and never leaves anything behind for me!"

"You mean the bust- beautiful blond who was in here a few nights ago?"

"The same." She pouted again and leaned back on her bar stool. She had about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes left before she could report it was a bust and she wanted as much information as she could find. "Hey, do you know where she's going? We're supposed to travel to Suna together for a wedding but she always breaks off on her own to gamble and now I need to find her."

The barkeep looked a bit skeptical but another flash of cleavage won him over. She loved civilians. "Well, I heard her say she was planning on staying till the end of the week, but she split town when some ex-boyfriends of hers showed up and she hasn't been here since."

Sakura froze for a millisecond before smiling again. "Oh Kami, which one was it this time?" She giggled again, waved her hand, took a sip of the fruity drink he ended up giving her and immediately purged it from her system. At least it didn't taste poisonous.

The barkeep smiled when she drank and started to make another one. "It was two guys, actually, both in some dorky cloaks. Weird, right?"

"Oh," she said, staring directly at the crow on the building across the street, "That is weird."


	5. Chapter 5

Sakura went through the seven (eight? nine?) stages of grief in quick succession when she realized the weird guys in cloaks were most likely Akatsuki. The next five minutes were a fun game of multitasking as she tried to both questions the absentminded bartender and stave of her panic attack at the same time. She had more success with the latter. She realized the man would give her nothing, which meant the next logical step would be to stop at the inn and see if she could tell which Akatsuki members it had been. Unfortunately, she was waylaid by Shisui dropping down from the rooftops and pulling her into an alleyway, a move that nearly made her take his head off. She thought she saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye as she was pulled away and rechecked her masked chakra.

"I think I have some ba-" he began before she slapped a hand over his mouth. His eyes were darting around and she could tell he had seen what she had.

"If it's that members of Akatsuki are apparently after Tsunade as well, I already know." Shisui gaped at her before sheepishly scratching at the back of his head.

He leaned in closer, peeking around the corner. "I guess I should have expected you to be good at espionage." He glanced back and gave her a thumbs up before scouting again.

"I'm passable," she said, "But the Fourth Shinobi War involved more open attacks than hidden espionage, so that's what I became really good at."

Shisui started and turned to her, forgoing stealth in his shock. "Fourth?" Sakura winced, realizing that she hadn't explained much of what happened outside of Konoha. She shrugged her shoulders, probably not the best response, but the quickest and quietest ones.

She felt a massive chakra signature and made the hand signal for camp at the shell-shocked Uchiha. He was right next to her, and once again she was forced to marvel at his speed.

She didn't feel a pursuit, nor did she hear anything that might suggest they had been spotted, and she let herself hope. She still took the most winding path back to camp as she could and Shisui followed her lead. He was tense when they ran back to the forest and he split off from her about halfway back. They were going to have a long conversation tonight, she could tell.

Getting back to the tree where her clone was provided her with no difficulty, and she decided to be open about going on ahead to the village. If they knew Tsunade wasn't there, Naruto and Sasuke probably wouldn't investigate for themselves, and that meant no chance of them running into Akatsuki members. Sakura didn't know if this Akatsuki wanted to hunt the tailed-beasts but she wasn't going to take any chances.

She dismissed her clone before hopping to the tree and met Kakashi's raised eyebrow with a shake of her head. Naruto and Sasuke rounded on her immediately but she raised her hands in fake surrender before the yelling would start. "She's not there."

"Excuse me?" The following conversation went about as well as could be expected, but Kakashi had the decency to pretend to be on her side when she started tapping out "enemy" in code on the tree branch. He ordered everyone back to camp to plan their next move but lingered a moment with Sakura.

"Enemy?"

"Two Akatsuki members in town asking after Tsunade. Identities unknown. Shisui might know more," she reported. Kakashi tensed for a second before nodding and running back to camp. When they got there, it was to Sasuke and Naruto wrestling a bit away from the still lit campfire, apparently having gotten into an argument in the ten seconds the group was separated. Kakashi tasked them with hunting for food and whatnot before covertly but quickly ducking into Sakura's tent, where Shisui was already waiting.

"My barkeep only knew about the cloaks," she started, "Do you have any idea what members are hunting her?"

"An idea has to why now would be good as well," Kakashi commented lightly. At odds with his tone was the fact that his porn book was gone and his posture looked ready.

Shisui wasted no time. "One apparently had blond hair and an abrasive tongue, and the other had red hair and a creepy stair.

Kakashi cursed. Sakura knew Kakashi cursed because she heard him do it, saw his hand clench, but she couldn't really tell what he said. In fact, she didn't even know what Shisui said. She heard a rhythmic clicking in her head, and she couldn't help but think that in the right light her tent almost looked like a cave.

The thing about Sasori, more than any of her other opponents, was that he was really the first ninja to kill her. She could think of some unfunny joke about kunoichi and their first times, but every time she thought of Sasori she thought of the sword going through her chest. She thought of him lunging forward. She thought of Sasori "letting" Chiyo kill him after the poison master saved her life.

Sasori was her first real opponent, the first time she really fought back against the world. It was one of the most intense fights of her life, even to this day. No one involved was a reincarnated god or had a bloodline limit that transcended reality or some bullshit. It had been three ninjas in a cave (or two, or two hundred, depending on what was counted) fighting to the death. She still remembers Sasori saying she would be a fine puppet. She was horrified.

Then, in no time at all, she made herself Chiyo's puppet. Ninja had no right to be scared. Ninja had no right to own themselves in a fight.

And Sakura had never said it, not really, but Sasori acknowledging her by the end of it all was one of the worst things he could have done. Now she was a real kunoichi, a real threat, and hiding would do as much good for her as it did for Tsunade. The best ninjas are the ones who are never allowed to be invisible, and the day she walked out of that cave and Sasori didn't was the day people saw her.

Now, all these years later, after being stabbed more times than she could count, she could admire Sasori. He killed his kage, and she wishes she could have done the same. He was his own master by the end of his life, something Sakura had never achieved. She was always serving Konoha, and when it died she served its ghost. Sakura was incapable of controlling her own strings.

Sakura was roughly torn out of her cave by Kakashi shaking her shoulders. "You know Deidara and Sasori?"

"Know them?" She laughed, feeling off, feeling like a cross between a murder victim and an evil mastermind at the same time. "I killed one of them."

That was, of course, when Naruto was thrown into the side of her tent.

Sakura, who now realized that she was entirely remiss in not warding her tent against her allies, did her best to tear a rip in the fabric to let Shisui escape. She practically leaped across Kakashi's lap to do so, which was unfortunate considering he was trying to shove Naruto out of the tent at the same time. In the midst of all this, Shisui flashed out of the hurricane, right into the trap of Sasuke's waiting arms.

Shisui gave a yelp but recognized his own cousin quickly enough to not make an offensive move. Sakura found herself in a tangle of limbs with Kakashi and Naruto, possibly creating the least graceful moments in all of their lives. They all tried to subdue each other, but the lack of actual malice meant most of their practiced moves were off-limits. Elsewhere, Shisui had managed to tackle Sasuke to the ground and was now fending off his younger cousin's ire.

Kakashi and Sakura eventually substituted themselves out for the two logs around the campfire, only to find Naruto already there - apparently it had been a clone, albeit a sturdy one. He grabbed the two of them by their collars and started the shake, ranting the whole time, the same as Sasuke. Neither of them were very happy that their teammates had been keeping secrets and that there was a hidden ANBU agent trailing them.

Sasuke used a minor fire jutsu to escape the sheepish Shisui and glared at his two team members. "What the hell is going on here, and why does a civilian know before I do?"

"And me!" Naruto added. Sakura glanced to Kakashi hoping to get a signal as to how he wanted to place this considering he probably knew the two of them best, but he had already dragged out a porn book. Nonchalance, then?

Shisui was making some covert hand signals, but the sign language used by ANBU was constantly changing over time, which meant it also heavily differed over universe. She could only guess at a few, most likely "lying" and "team," before Sasuke slapped his hands down roughly. Shisui allowed the abuse and sent a beseeching look to Kakashi, who discreetly noticed and then obviously ignored it. Sakura snorted against her will and Shisui's wounded sound before disengaging her color from Naruto's hold.

"So," she started, before realizing she wasn't really going anywhere. The thing was, by the time Sakura had gotten good at lying and killing (gotten good at being a ninja, basically) both Sasuke and Naruto had been dead. She couldn't recall ever having to go on a mission with the two of them and then lie and manipulate as a team leader. That was pure ANBU, pure ROOT, and she didn't know if she was capable of toying with her original teammates.

Because Sakura could fight gods and monsters and herself all damn day but she was never really going to be anything more than a weak little genin when it came to her teammates. Always on the sidelines, always letting them take charge. And here and now, with her palm more callouses than skin, she didn't know if she could touch them, much less hurt them. "So," she said, and she didn't say anything else.

Shisui was beside her in an instant, trying to comfort her, some remnant of his relationship with the other Sakura. She moved away, but she could never be as quick as Shisui, and she still felt the phantom touch on her shoulder. Kakashi also managed to disentangle himself from Naruto and only clasped his book with one hand. He was preparing for something, but she couldn't tell what. She hoped it wouldn't involve launching more weaponry at her; with Akatsuki involved, Sakura had to begin storing and conserving as much of her meager chakra supplies as she could.

Shisui, hands grasped into her fists after Sakura stepped away, put on a charming smile. "Looks like the mission parameters changed, little cousin, and it's going to be me, Kakashi, and the Tsunade expert from here on out."

Sasuke growled at Shisui but Kakashi stopped him with one look. "Shisui's right, things have changed, and I'm sending both of you back to Konoha."

Naruto was visibly hurt by all this. "But Tsunade's my family! And if it's dangerous, Sakura won't be able to protect herself," he cried. With things at camp heating up, Sakura did another chakra pulse, but still detected nothing in the forest around her. However, once again, she underestimated her older and alive teammates, and Naruto caught her in her act.

"What are you checking for, Sakura-chan?"

"And don't give me some 'it's classified' bullshit, sensei, Sakura's a civilian and I'm a jounin!" Sasuke bit out. Despite his apparent rage, Sasuke also started scanning the area around camp.

Sakura was stuck at an impasse. The question remained: could she take on two members of the Akatsuki - both stronger than their known iterations - with only Shisui and Kakashi as backup? The two of them were powerful, yes, and they would have a medic on their side, but Sasori had an immortal body and Deidara had a bomb for a body. The safest bet would be to include Sasuke and Naruto in the fight, but that meant she either didn't fight or she would be forced to reveal her battle prowess, something not easily explain to her teammates that saw her get booted from the genin corps.

Not to mention, if the Akatsuki had found Tsunade, who probably still had a crippling fear of blood, and Shizune, who was a poison's expert and not a fighter, they would have to defend the two of them.

Sakura needed time to think, pages to scribble on, and probably the ability to see into the future. This was Tsunade, her shishou, and Sakura couldn't fail her. Not again, and especially not here.

So could she trust Naruto and Sasuke to fight in her place, or could she trust them to keep her secret? That was the choice she had, really, and she didn't want to make it without confirming with Kakashi and Shisui. Except now she couldn't because all three of them had underestimated Naruto and Sasuke and fallen for their stupid trap. Amateur to the last, Rat.

She tried to speak again over the yelling. "How about-"

"Great idea Sakura, let's let the two boys pack!" Shisui grabbed both her and Kakashi and sprinted to the treeline, managing to carry the both of them without a hitch. Wasn't just speed, then.

Naruto and Sasuke both tried climbing the tree after them (well, Naruto actually just performed at eight-feet vertical leap) but Kakashi silenced them with a stern "That's an order!"

Sakura hurriedly carved some silencing seals into the bark before the conversation began and turned around to see her two partners doing the same. She giggled, nervously, but truer than her laugh had been before. Shisui also noticed and chuckled, but Kakashi merely put away his kunai and his porn. At least he was taking her seriously.

"You think we need to other two to face Akatsuki," he stated without preamble.

Sakura nodded and started fidgeting with her fingerless gloves. "The way I see it, Akatsuki's been hired to hunt her down now of all times because for the past two weeks I've been publicly gathering information on her. Being visible about it helped my case with the Hokage, but now I see it probably means Orochimaru knows." She couldn't help the mountain of guilt rising in her at the thought of leading Akatsuki to her shishou.

Shisui cracked his knuckles as he thought over what she said. "It's probable," he said, "Considering everyone knows Tsunade's the best medic out of the Sannin. Orochimaru's more of a scientist."

"So if Tsunade came back, he would lose his position," she concluded, daydreaming about ripping out the man's tongue and choking him with it.

"And," Kakashi drawled, "They know that the girl who is onto Danzo's conspiracy is now hunting down the one woman capable of taking down the head of the hospital. They know you're onto them-"

"So their orders are probably to kill both Tsunade and me." Silence fell over their group as they considered Danzo's angle.

"He couldn't possibly want you all dead - Naruto is the Hokage's son!"

And then Sakura had a terrible thought, a terrifying thought. Because Danzo wanted to be Hokage - he always wanted to be Hokage. And Minato loved his son - he always loved his son. And if Minato's son died on a mission with an Uchiha child and one of the most powerful and trustworthy ninja Konoha had to offer, the entire village would be thrown into chaos. Danzo and Orochimaru could make a perfect opening.

So Danzo could very well want them all dead, and now Sakura's managed to set Akatsuki on her best friend's tail the second time in her second world.

She didn't want to tell Shisui and Kakashi the true extent of Danzo's machinations a few days ago, but things were changing at a clip none of them could match. She wouldn't leave them blind, not with the trust they've given her.

"You're wrong, Shisui," she said, and her voice was strong but her hands were shaking. She was shaking apart. "Danzo would do anything for a chance at power-"

"And the ultimate power in Konoha is the Hokage's seat. Killing Naruto would only help destablize the Fourth." Kakashi's voice was low. He looked at her, a glance, and a nod was all he needed to know that Danzo was the Hokage that had gotten Sakura killed. Which meant his plans went far beyond a hospital. Which meant the three enough wouldn't be enough to stop him, even if they did get Tsunade.

The tree started shaking and Sakura looked down to see Naruto leaping up the branches. "Two chakra sources - coming in five minutes!" he shouted. Sasuke was already staring westward with his Sharingan out, looking for the danger.

The four of them lept from the tree and Kakashi immediately set Naruto to make traps around them. Shisui braced to run in the opposite direction, ready to be a hidden weapon, before Sakura caught him.

"Sasori and Deidara are a puppet master and a bomb expert, respectively. Sasori has command over three hundred puppets by now, and he does have a puppet for a body. He's functionally immortal until his heart is pierced." The tension in the camp was rising drastically as the clock ran down. "Deidara's tricky as hell and can make powerful bombs at will. His left eye makes him immune to genjutsu, even the Sharingan, and he can make his body a bomb as a last resort. Sasori killed the Third Kazekage and uses his body as a puppet. In my world, Deidara was able to kill the Fifth."

Everyone in camp turned to stare at her in shock and Kakashi made the fastest recovery, giving a firm nod and sending Shisui off. Sasuke and Naruto were less accepting.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto said. He floundered for a minute, a minute they didn't have, before shaking his head. "Sakura-chan?"

Sakura knew what he was asking and neither she nor Kakashi knew what to answer with. In the pause, Sasuke fell into a fighting stance.

"I am Sakura," she finally said. "But there are some things you don't know about me."

"Like how you have intel on Akatsuki members, know my cousin, and the fact that you're talking about a different 'world?'" Sasuke scoffed but his gaze was sharp. Now even Sakura could feel the chakra signatures of the approaching mercenaries.

Kakashi put away his book and removed his eye patch, adopted eye spinning away. Sakura briefly wondered about the Obito of this world before locking the thought in a box.

"She's on our side," Kakashi finally said, "And we're going to need all the help we can get."


End file.
